


the simplest things are the most complicated

by goddammit_charlie



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Disordered Eating, Fat Mac, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-05
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-21 08:25:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3685155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goddammit_charlie/pseuds/goddammit_charlie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Soooo I made a AO3 account because my life wasn't sad enough already. Here's some stuff from my tumblr.</p><p>*titled edited because previous crappy one was annoying me*</p>
    </blockquote>





	the simplest things are the most complicated

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo I made a AO3 account because my life wasn't sad enough already. Here's some stuff from my tumblr.
> 
> *titled edited because previous crappy one was annoying me*

Mac is disgusting. His gut hangs over the waistband of his pants like a beachball filled with mayonnaise, and his thick hobo beard has orange Dorito dust clinging to it. The dude is _wheezing_ as he eats, for Christ’s sake. Dennis is convinced he can feel cholesterol sludging through his own arteries just from looking at his roommate. The bigger Mac gets the less Dennis eats, trying to cleanse himself of the fat that seeps like second-hand smoke through their apartment, but even when he’s lightheaded from fasting he still feels a layer of grease coating the inside of his mouth as if he’s just swallowed down a bacon cheeseburger.

Dennis closes his eyes to escape the sight of Mac shovelling a handful of fries into his hairy face. When he opens them again he finds himself staring at the ceiling, a dull ache thudding through his swimming head.

“Dude, are you okay?” Mac is kneeling next to him on the scuffed floor of the bar. “You went down pretty hard bro.” He reaches out to help his friend up, but Dennis swats him away before his meaty paws can touch him. He sits up, squints as the room swirls around him, decides to remain sitting on the floor for a while before he tries to stand. Mac sits beside him, leaning his back against the bar and stretching his legs out in front of him.

“That’s the third time that’s happened in like two weeks, Den.” Mac’s voice is softer this time. Dennis rests his aching head back against the bar stool he’d fallen from, and says nothing. It’s actually the fifth time, but Mac wasn’t around for the other two.

Mac picks at a loose thread on the hem of his shirt. He wants to ask Dennis to go back and see the doctor again, maybe get some vitamin supplements or something, but he knows it will just result in a fight and Dennis can’t afford to spare the energy for that right now.

*

The next day Dennis emerges from his room at around noon, his curls sticking up at odd angles and eyes sunken and purple-rimmed despite sleeping for 12 hours straight. Mac is in the kitchen, and when he hears Dennis’s door open he turns to greet him with a wide grin that makes Dennis’s hollow stomach twist in a complicated flurry of guilt, fondness and hatred.

“Morning bro!” Mac turns back to the kitchen counter and carefully lifts a tray. “I was just going to bring this through for you, do you want it in bed or shall I put it here?” he asks, nodding toward the coffee table in front of the couch.

Dennis can smell the strong black coffee that swills alarmingly in its mug as the tray wobbles. Beside this there is a plate of dry toast, a glass of orange juice and a bowl of carefully peeled and sliced fruit. His knees feel more wobbly than the precarious tray, and he quickly sinks to the couch to avoid another scene. Mac places the tray on the coffee table and hands him the coffee from it. As Dennis wraps his pale hands around the hot mug, a lump seems to swell in his throat and he pushes back a ludicrous urge to weep.

“I uh… there’s cream and sugar in the kitchen but I thought you normally like it black…” Mac’s face is flushed crimson behind his dark beard, and he stares intently at the breakfast tray to avoid the look on Dennis’s face.

“Yeah, no, it’s - it’s good.” Mac’s head is still downturned but he raises his eyes to glance at his roommate’s face. Looking like this, childlike and hopeful, he is just Mac again - no giant, no monster, just Mac. Dennis feels a warm flood of affection that he tries to mask with a scalding sip of coffee, but Mac must have seen it because his face lights up with another grin and he settles himself beside Dennis on the couch. He lifts the bowl of fruit and rests it on his knee, inches from Dennis’s hand.

“It’s mostly apple ‘cause I know that’s like, okay,” he babbles, “but there’s also some strawberries and blueberries and they had mangoes at the store so I got one of those but I didn’t put it in just in case you didn’t like it, but it’s in the fridge if you want some, I can…” Mac’s voice trails off as Dennis wriggles under his arm and curls up with his cheek against Mac’s chest.

“Thank you, Mac” he mumbles into the folds of the Tommy Bahama shirt. Mac wraps his arm around his friend and brings his other hand across to run unthinkingly through Dennis’s hair.

“No problem, man” he smiles as Dennis takes a piece of apple and crunches it slowly. His fingers move back and forth through the mop of curls, now ruffling them up, now smoothing them back, and he thinks that if they could just stay like this forever, curled around each other in their quiet apartment, they might both be happier than they had any real right to be.


End file.
